Mohacsy's Safe Portfolio Member Forum

[Elroy Jetson]

Wall Street - transitions into a Residential neighborhood

Today, a “Wall Street bank” is defined as a financial institution with trading operations that span the globe and investment bankers counseling CEOs. An actual location on the street doesn’t matter.

JPMorgan closed its branch Friday at 45 Wall St., ending more than 150 years of physical ties between the bank and the street that is a catchall term for the global money business.

A condo for sale inside 45 Wall Street - https://www.wsj.com/finance/banking/wall-street-has-abandoned-wall-street-4b4696c1


It was down the block at 23 Wall St., facing the New York Stock Exchange, where J. Pierpont Morgan and his son transformed the firm into one of the world’s most powerful banks. 23 Wall St and other historic Wall Street buildings are empty shells with vacant storefronts and “for rent” signs on their facades.

Banks occupy a couple hundred thousand square feet on the street, according to John Santora, chairman of real-estate broker Cushman & Wakefield’s New York operations. As recently as 2000, that had been 5 million square feet.

Sunil Rally, who has run a newsstand on Wall Street since 1991 is thinking about shutting down his stand because tourists visiting "Wall Street" don’t cover the loss from7towered the building at 60 Wall St., 55 stories tall, built in the 1980s and occupied by JPMorgan, then Deutsche Bank. It has been vacant since 2021.

JPMorgan left 23 Wall St. in the 1980s, then moved its headquarters to Midtown Manhattan in 2001. The bank explored buying back 23 Wall St., according to executives, but a deal never came together. JPMorgan is now building a glistening new bronze office tower for its headquarters on Park Avenue, several miles north.

JPMorgan had run the 45 Wall St. branch since 2006, but is moving several blocks away. “It kind of looked like a bowling alley,” said Sarah Roselli, Chase’s market director for New York’s Financial District. “We decided it was time to move.”

Peter Tuchman, a broker on the NYSE floor, has seen firsthand how the street has changed. He started working there in 1985 as a teletypist submitting stock orders for Cowen & Co.

“The minute I walked down here, I knew it was the place for me,” he said. “There was energy, adrenaline, and it was chaotic.”

Now, the floor of the NYSE is much quieter, filled with humming computers and a couple of CNBC anchors. Outside, the presence of young professionals living in luxury apartment buildings is leading to changes at historic financial landmarks.

The high-end gym chain Equinox occupies the former headquarters of Bankers Trust at 14 Wall St., whose top was designed to resemble the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. T.J. Maxx is in the basement.

Tuchman remembers when it was an actual bank.

“It had huge ceilings and there was beautiful handcrafted bronze at each teller window,” he said. “It was really unbelievable.”



A LONG TIME COMING

The US government seized 40 Wall Street in 1986 when it was discovered to be secretly owned by Ferdinand Marcos, the corrupt dictator of the Philippines. The action launched a succession of failed auctions, foreclosures, lawsuits and decay that cast a long, dark shadow over the Financial District for a decade. The building was built in 1929 as the headquarters of The Manhattan Company which merged with Chase Bank in 1955.

Tenants left one after another until the building was 80% empty in the mid-1990s. Donald Trump bought the leasehold for a lowball price — exactly how much is disputed — in 1995. He partially restored it and attracted new tenants until his interests turned to a television show called "The Apprentice"

Duane Reade drugstore, the largest store tenant with over 20,000 square feet, moved out last fall — a devastating blow to the dwindling rent roll — and the tower today is worth perhaps $200 million, brokers say — less than half of its estimated value ten years ago.

Since Trump took over the building in 1995, discovered that "prosecutors have filed criminal charges against at least 29 people connected to 12 alleged scams tied to 40 Wall St.. Nine other firms have faced serious regulatory claims. Authorities prevailed in most but not all of the cases." Additionally, "no U.S. address has been home to more of the https://www.sec.gov/investor/oiepauselist.htm]unregistered brokerages that investors complain about, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission's current public alert list." http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-trump-40-wall-street

So what exactly are we talking about? A faked suicide? Check. A ponzi-schemer? You betcha. A penny-stock scam? Yep, there was one of those too. https://theweek.com/speedreads/631650/donald-trumps-most-valuable-building-home-dozens-criminals

The day of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and killed 3,000 people, Donald Trump bragged in a TV interview that 40 Wall Street was suddenly the tallest building in the city. Not only was his claim offensive in the way he specializes, it was also a lie. Another nearby skyscraper on Pine Street in Lower Manhattan became the tallest building after the destruction of the Twin Towers.

Trump's 40 Wall building has been placed on "Lender Watch" as vacancies and costs soar.


Another former Chase Bank property is the Seamen's Savings Bank headquarters, founded in 1829 and declared insolvent by the FDIC in 1990 with its assets sold to Chase Bank. After decades of chasing tenants with ever lower rent, the building now lies empty.